This guy has spent a lot of time collecting and analyzing slicing data.

One take away that is probably generically applicable is that higher companion favor results in them completing missions faster. And to further complicate the matter, the UI will tell you one time it will take, but the actual time it takes is noticably faster than that. As an example, at 5096 favor a mission that lists in the task browser as taking 18min33sec will actually take 17min4sec.

I found the ~3 min speed delta was lost in the noise. Namely, I'd be sending 3 companions out on Rich 5s and Abundant 6s, which meant that maybe my favored char might finish the A6 around the same time as the R5.

This is interesting analysis, and appears to indicate that on average you'll only make 15-25 credits per minute with offline slicing.

The real benefit of slicing, I think, is that while you're leveling up, you find all the boxes scattered around the world for free (in terms of credits; one would have to reduce the entire game play mechanism to credits/sec to determine the real cost of getting to an unguarded (cheap) or guarded (expensive) slicing box, calculated on a per-class and possibly per-spec basis to get stealth bonuses and average killing time). Because crafting as you go doesn't seem to offer much of a boon (except to fill in unloved spots), one could indeed argue that the most effective way to spend your time is to slice to 50, then take the money and use that to help grind the craft of your choice.

Because crafting as you go doesn't seem to offer much of a boon (except to fill in unloved spots)

This is essentially but not technically true. At least with synthweaving and artificing, I'm finding that the blue rev-eng patterns are better than what I have. However, first you have to make ~5 of the normal thing before you discover the better pattern, and the better pattern almost always requires mats that you'd get from Underworld Trading.

So yeah, since I've stopped Thana at 25, and grinded Mel's UT to 200, sure, now I could start equipping Thana with better stuff. Or I could just level her up and get drops that'd be just as good in probably an hour or two.

So yay for at least making crafting potentially useful during the levelling process (as opposed to WoW, which is always behind the levelling curve), but boo for not actually making it useful (which LOTRO did right). Ah well.

I found that I could keep crafting on par with level, and useful, in WoW. On the other hand, I feel like I could do it in SWTOR but that it's much easier to keep up my equipment via commendations to buy mods.

My understanding is that they made augments more important, so slicing missions still have a role... but it does make you wonder what the lockbox missions are supposed to be for, at this point. (If it's not a bug.)